


Absent melodies and crippled songs

by GodDamnedHurricane



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blank Verse, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodDamnedHurricane/pseuds/GodDamnedHurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poetry in English. Blank verse, teenage angst going on 30, all adults are pirates</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thieves and orphans.

Take your version  
and run with it.  
Run with its lies and its threats  
and its rotten face.  
Run with others’ lives turned into  
guest stars for your spotlight  
and cry when they want to leave  
and faint  
and bite (but only where the bite marks  
won’t show).  
Run with your life that doesn’t have a life of its own,  
run with your vulture show.  
It’s the only thing you have left.  
Poor little girl.


	2. It's not me you're looking for

The one  
picked last.  
The one  
being let go.  
The one  
no one fought for

(too much effort for such a little gain)  
(get away get away get away).


	3. Gonewish

what a life that isn’t a life.  
what a stomach full with bile and why’s.  
what a way to go against the flow, unwilling, thrashing your legs.  
what a waste.


	4. Defective Pheidippides (we lost the war)

Everybody’s got a life  
and I’ve fallen behind like a  
forgotten toy or  
a wounded soldier or  
that runner who breaks his leg on the last mile.  
And he tries to go on and cries when he falls,  
when that stupid piece of machinery falters,  
when that stupid flesh and that stupid bone disjoin,  
separate from each other and tear apart,  
and it’s not because of the pain  
(yes it hurts  
and it bleeds  
and it breaks) but because  
he can see.  
He can see the dust that the others shake  
on their way to the finish line.  
They’ve forgotten.  
They can’t stop.  
They all have their own races to finish.  
I can see the light that you left around me  
while we were still on the same track  
all those years ago.  
But it’s fading now,  
it’s going out now,  
you’re all just shapes against the sun,  
so far you can’t hear me anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

I've bought a bit of peace of mind in the shape of wings and jet fuel  
and overhead compartments that won't stay closed

so wait for me  
hold on for me  
i'm coming home to say goodbye.  
i'm hoping this is not goodbye


	6. skip

and i'm constantly torn between

thinking i deserve better  
and  
this paralysing fear to demand better

hey look at me i want that can i have some too why won't you share why won't you offer why to him why to her why not to me

like being 17 and they're passing a joint during break and i am skipped every time

just skipped, a secret pact, a silent agreement to act like i don't want it so why offer at all

but i want that, the joint, the help, the pat on the back everybody else gets even if they just arrived, exchange students from the religious school down the street, all those names passing by joining the circle and they all know

instantly, instinctively,

i'm the one to be skipped over


	7. where to

If I knew where to   
take this pain  
I’d do it.  
I’d send it away with an open return  
and a book   
with your picture marking the last page.  
If I knew how to  
take it there  
I’d hold its hand cold with loss,  
hard with questions  
and walk with it down the road  
(it’s an ugly one this kid we had)

But I don’t know how to  
I don’t know where to.  
I just sit on the bed,  
watch it play.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s a different language, this crevice between us  
and it’s written in code on the sky and the walls  
for the numerous few allowed in in the circle  
and if I learned to read it the crack would get bigger,  
In the earthquake that’ll come I’m the one that’ll crash down.


	9. Chapter 9

failing signal.  
radar blip.  
i’m an astronaut sliding further  
sliding silent  
sliding lost.

silent objects.  
isolated.  
no more voices through this cord,  
no more air  
i’m breathing remains  
that i can’t remember.  
i’m living on the idea of what was,  
of the mission where i mattered,  
and that is fading.

interference.  
foreign voices.  
i can’t speak in my own language  
and mission control is partying  
and i keep floating away.  
i called once and twice and ten times.  
their music’s too loud and  
i don’t want to ruin their fun.  
i don’t want to be that person.  
i don’t know the song they’re playing  
and there’s nothing else to breathe.

disconnected.  
signal lost.


	10. Chapter 10

it’s sad isn’t it,  
isn’t that sad  
such a smart girl  
and it’s all for nothing and there’s nothing there anymore, because she’s lost the right to call herself “girl” taken away by the years  
and where there was potential there’s only a teacher’s voice long gone  
with the “smart” and the “good” and all the tales spinning (o! the places she’d go!)  
and in the end  
in the end she went not much further than the corner store  
not much higher than an office on a second floor (if she’s lucky, 9 to 5, weekends off).

now she’s out of the race she didn’t know she was running in. and it’s sad isn’t it. she doesn’t remember when she lost track of the years  
or in what sinkhole did that teacher’s voice fall.

there’s a girl inside that’s now  
little more than a void.  
it’s shaped like the fingers she had and the curls she had and the scratches she got on the knees when she played wolf  
but it’s not a girl, not anymore.  
it’s a shadow of the shadow of the girl who could have done   
all the things they thought she would. and she’d been dead all along. she was never there after all.


	11. cassandra

go away, cassandra.

no one wants to hear your tales of ruin and violence,  
no one believes you.   
they see only snakes dripping from your lips where words should be,  
ready to attack,  
to hold their eyes open wide,  
to make them see what they’ve refused to see for so long, too long now.  
too late now.  
there’s blood in those hands, turned to honey by those eyes. and there’s a sweetness in the slow killing of everything that was inside of you.

there’s only one side to each story, one story to each future, and it was never yours.


End file.
